IITs have been following food segregation by demarcating a space where students who eat egg or meat are not allowed to enter, both officially and unofficially for years. APPSC (Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle) IIT Bombay had filed an RTI on November 2022 asking the IIT Bombay administration for the details of this segregation in hostel messes. In the reply to the RTI, IIT Bombay declared that there is no such segregation permitted or endorsed by the administration. On July 2022, a mail was sent to the students of Hostel 12 of IIT Bombay by their General Secretary reiterating the institute position that there are no separate eating spaces designated for vegetarians. He also mentioned about ‘reports of individuals forcefully designating certain areas in mess as “Jain sitting space” and removing individuals who bring non-vegetarian food to sit in those areas’. From the next day onwards, “Vegetarian only” posters came up in the combined mess of Hostels 12, 13 and 14 demarcating an area of mess as exclusive to them and where meat/egg eating students were denied entry. When the administration was asked to remove the ‘unauthorised posters’ and uphold the non-segregation policy which they have been claiming on paper, they removed the posters only after weeks of complaints. But two months later, a mail was sent to students of Hostel 12, 13 and 14 where they officially sanctioned food segregation by demarcating an area of mess not to be crossed by students eating egg/meat, because sight of meat caused ‘nausea’ and ‘vomiting’ among some students. The mail warned strict punishment for meat eating students who would violate this food segregation rule.

IITs have been infamous for trying to ensure ‘purity’ of vegetarian spaces by forced segregation and penalizing ‘contamination’ by meat eaters for years. In 2018, IIT Madras had designated separate entrances, utensils and even wash basins for vegetarian and non-vegetarian students. In the same year, IIT Bombay also tried to enforce segregation by separation of plates for vegetarian and non-vegetarians, where non-vegetarians are not allowed to use the circular plates. In September 2022, mess caterers of Hostel 10 in IIT Bombay were fined Rs.50,000 for cooking vegetarian food in the stove designated for non-vegetarian food. In 2014, the HRD ministry  had asked the IITs and IIMs to examine demand for a separate canteen for vegetarian students on their campuses, as a response to a letter that claimed “non-vegetarian food leaves an adverse impact on person consuming it” and “leads the development of ‘Tamas’ (dark and unrighteous) nature”. Even before the ministry directed the IITs, IIT Delhi decided to go full vegetarian, where students claimed the prime reason was that many vegetarian students had expressed their displeasure at eating on the same table with non-vegetarians. Recently, Laxmidhar Behera, the director of IIT Mandi, had sparked controversy by urging students to pledge not to eat meat, claiming that non-stop butchering of animals is causing landslides and cloudbursts and this will lead to a “significant downfall” of Himachal Pradesh. In IIT Hyderabad too, the segregation of eating spaces was formalized this year.

In India, the relationship between people and their food habits is majorly determined by the hierarchical caste system. Historically, caste has played an important role in determining who gets access to ‘pure’ food and who are to consume ‘impure’ food. Members of the highest caste are said to be mostly vegetarians and does not eat meat which is considered impure (though there are numerous exceptions within the communities). If they were to eat or even touch meat, they would be declared to be corrupted and would have to go through numerous purifying rituals. Thus, associating meat as ‘impure’ and ‘polluting’ and those who does not eat meat as ‘pure’ becomes a symbolic way of reinforcing the superiority of savarnas over the others in the caste hierarchy. These concepts of ‘purity and pollution’ have influenced practices of food cooking, serving, eating and even of cleaning utensils.

This story was originally published in sabrangindia.in . Read the full story here .